Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Plans vs. Planning

"Plans are worthless, but planning is everything." ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
I find this quote really interesting. I think it implies that we need to be doing due diligence in determining how we should accomplish something, but that we need to be willing to change course when inevitable problems arise. Planning is important, not because of the plan that is created, but because (done properly) it helps you find pitfalls and problems that could arise on your way to your goal.

I think this notion of agility is important. It means that we take time to anticipate what is coming and therefore anticipate counter measures. Unfortunately, I think that Agile (with a capital A) has gotten a bit out of hand. Agile development is about teams taking control, but it seems that so many of the Agile frameworks are about taking control from the developers.

One reason for this, I think, is that self organizing teams should be improving and developing what is needed, but there is a fear that team members won't know what is needed unless you tell them what to do.

There are probably other reasons too...

I dream of a world where developing software is about developing software, not about managing the process developers are expected to follow.